1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a telecommunications network; and, more particularly, to a mobile phone used therein.
2. Description of Related Art
Many people are either hard of hearing or cannot hear at all. These people have a very hard time using a mobile phone, or cannot use it at all.
In the prior art, there are only a few products that address this problem, including a hearing aid or a mobile phone loop headset. However, the hearing aids normally cannot be used with mobile phones. The NMP loop headset is one solution, but this requires that a significant amount of hearing capability still exists, and only the user's ears are used as an input channel.
Moreover, vibrotactile representation of speech stimuli is known in the art. In medical science, the vibrotactile-phenomenon is commonly practiced in audiology. See “Vibrotactile Perception of Speech,” by Stina Ojala, Phonetics, University of Turku, Finland, for a full explanation of the vibrotactile phenomenon itself. Many different vibrotactile device are known, including devices mounted on an ear mould, a ring, a bracelet or a watch. These devices convert speech into a vibration modulation that stimulates and assists the user.